First off, there is a link to his blog, which I was just discovering, since I had been missing it for a few months after it started continuing:
Why are Red Barns Red?
May 17, 2016 by Mark Shea 2 Comments
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2016/05/why-are-red-barns-red.html
Here he gives a link within his first words. Here are all the words:
Because of the physics of dying stars.
Of course you could say that about every heavy element. Why is gold rare? Because of the physics of dying stars. Why is water plentiful? Same deal. Why are you made out of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen? You called it.
Here is the link:
SmartNews : Barns Are Painted Red Because of the Physics of Dying Stars
By Rose Eveleth / smithsonian.com / May 10, 2013
Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/barns-are-painted-red-because-of-the-physics-of-dying-stars-58185724/
And here is the deal with this link. It links in its turn to another link.
Google + : Yonatan Zunger : Today I Learned: May 08, 2013
How the price of paint is set in the hearts of dying stars
https://plus.google.com/+YonatanZunger/posts/EfmdR6VWvRM
And HERE we will quote the part of Zunger which Rose quoted:
The only thing holding the star up was the energy of the fusion reactions, so as power levels go down, the star starts to shrink. And as it shrinks, the pressure goes up, and the temperature goes up, until suddenly it hits a temperature where a new reaction can get started. These new reactions give it a big burst of energy, but start to form heavier elements still, and so the cycle gradually repeats, with the star reacting further and further up the periodic table, producing more and more heavy elements as it goes. Until it hits 56. At that point, the reactions simply stop producing energy at all; the star shuts down and collapses without stopping.
And HERE we will quote how Rose sums up the rest:
As soon as the star hits the 56 nucleon (total number of protons and neutrons in the nucleus) cutoff, it falls apart. It doesn’t make anything heavier than 56. What does this have to do with red paint? Because the star stops at 56, it winds up making a ton of things with 56 neucleons. It makes more 56 nucleon containing things than anything else (aside from the super light stuff in the star that is too light to fuse).
The element that has 56 protons and neutrons in its nucleus in its stable state? Iron. The stuff that makes red paint.
Mark Shea, have you looked at a Periodic Table lately?
[From here on I make for rest of article extensive use of wikipedia, mostly resuming, but the quote is from an article as standing.]
Iron on it is Fe, and Fe is atom number 26. So, if iron has 56 nucleons (a reconstructed thing btw, no one has ever seen anything smaller than outer wall of globe shaped atoms, alone or hanging together in molecules), this means the 56 nucleons divide in 26 protons and 30 neutrons.
One more thing. Iron is in row 4. In row 6, we get Ba, which I think means Barium. It has (on this theory) 56 protons. If it has no neutrons at all (highly unlikely if protons and neutrons mean anything at all) it is the last element which falls within this 56 nucleon limit for dying stars.
Barium is group 2 and period 6, as in as mentioned row 6 and as not yet mentioned column 2.
Period 6 does not stop with group 2, with Barium.
After this we get a double groups 3 to 16 in period 2, namely 57 La to 70 Yb (Lanthanium to Ytterbium, I9 presume) AND Lu 71 to 84 Po, as in from Lutetium to Polonium (probably both elements named by Sklodowska-Curie or her husband - she was a Polish patriot and a Parisian). THEN the period 6 ends in groups 17 and 18, At and Rn (Antimon, I presume, and Radon, one of the things making total background radiation more milliSieverts per year than the cosmic radiation would be on its own).
After THIS we get a period 7, 87 for Fr and 88 for Ra (Radium, not the noble gas, but a metal) and after this you get 89 Ac (Actinium) to 102 No (Norwegium?) including, most famously, U as Uranium and Th as Thorium and Pu as Plutonium (92, 90, 94), and unless I am mistaken Cm is also known as Cesium. It's 96n Cm, that is. Then 103 is period 7 group 3, then they go on 104 in group 4 (being Lr) to 118 in group 18, being Uuo. Also known as (I am looking it up) Ununoctium. And (also looking up) Lr is ... no, not Logan's Run (much as I enjoyed it while age 9 in US and learning English!), but Lawrencium.
Now, Lawrencium exists thanks to the cyclotron, invented by ... (looking up) ...
It is named in honor of Ernest Lawrence, inventor of the cyclotron, a device that was used to discover many artificial radioactive elements.
But how do you explain the elements pas Barium?
Or, for that matter, past Iron, because the 56 protons in Ba are not alone. The isotopes are nucleon counts 130, skipping 131, and going from 132 to 138. The latter one being most common. So Barium ALSO could not have formed in a dying star!
But perhaps (charming idea) Uranium and Thorium are really enhanced lead, however that could have come about?
Well, duh, lead also, Pb for Plumbum, is past 56 nucleons. It is past Barium in protons, since atom number 82.
Its isotopes are 202 to 210, skipping 203 and 209, 202 is synthetic, 205 and 210 are just there in traces.
Sounds a bit more than the 56 nucleons in Iron, right?
And Iron itself does not end with isotope atom weight 56. There are 57 and 58 naturally occurring, and we need not bother about synthetic atom weights 59 and 60. If the dying star can produce nothing heavier than 56 nucleons, where do iron 57 and 58 come from?
There is another theory, though you might have been misinformed by Robber Baron (and I am kind to Robert Barron with this nickname!) it is not meant to be taken scientifically.
Genesis 1:[1]
In the beginning God created heaven, and earth.
Note, if you would insist this verse leaves some room for elements UP TO iron atom weight 56 (!) to first form in dying stars in heaven before getting to earth, I should fairly warn you that stars are not created until verses 14 to 18:
Genesis 1:[14]
And God said: Let there be lights made in the firmament of heaven, to divide the day and the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years: [15] To shine in the firmament of heaven, and to give light upon the earth. And it was so done. [16] And God made two great lights: a greater light to rule the day; and a lesser light to rule the night: and the stars. [17] And he set them in the firmament of heaven to shine upon the earth. [18] And to rule the day and the night, and to divide the light and the darkness. And God saw that it was good.
On the bright side, this leaves some room for lead and uranium to be there without God having, when creating these, to heed the restrictions inherent in dying stars (according to a certain theory).
If you really think there should be leeway for scientific theories of elements to replace these, how about this one.
God on day four created Moon, Sun, Mars, Saturn and a few more. Earth has since then been producing Silver (Ag, atomic number 47, atomic weights however naturally occurring 107 and 109), Gold (Au, atomic number 79, atomic weight naturally occurring 197), Iron (see discussion above), and Lead (probably along with Uranium and Thorium) under the astrological influences of these bodies.*
That was good science in the day of St Thomas Aquinas. For my part, I think I prefer placing a one time creation of these elements in verse 1, before creation of any celestial body and possible influence of any astrological type.
One more thing. I learned this fact originally from Kent Hovind. Now that Mark Shea provided me with another source for it too and reminded me, I feel free to use it.**
And one more after that, why link to Rose and not to Yonatan Zunger? Is it because his words were on a google plus, not a Smithsonian page? If so, that is a sad testimony to faith in institutions and distrust in blogs. As if a blog (except naturally your own) were worthless up to when an institution links to it.
Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St Cleophas of Emmaus***, sorry
that was yesterday, I mean
Sts Cyprian and Justina°
26.IX.2016
*I omitted Jupiter and Tin because not knowing what atomic number and weight. But Jupiter's influence sure works better than dying stars. Atomic number 50 is one thing, but the isotopes are atomic weight (total number of nucleons, according to these theories) way beyond the 56 limit (112 to 126, most common three 120, 118, 116). ** Dying stars produce nothing, zilch, nada beyond atom weight 56! *** 25.IX: Apud castellum Emmaus natalis beati Cleophae, qui fuit Christi discipulus, quem et in eadem domo in qua mensam Domino paraverat, pro confessione illius a Judaeis occisum tradunt, et gloriosa memoria sepultum. ° 26.IX : Nicomediae natalis sanctorum Martyrum Cypriani, et Justinae Virginis. Haec, sub Diocletiano Imperatore et Eutolmio Praeside, cum multa pro Christo pertulisset, ipsum quoque Cyprianum, qui erat magus et suis magicis artibus eam dementare conabatur, ad Christianam fidem convertit; cum quo postea martyrium sumpsit. Eorum corpora, feris objecta, rapuerunt noctu quidam nautae Christiani, et Romam detulerunt; quae, postmodum in Basilicam Constantinianam translata, prope Baptisterium condita sunt.
